


Million Year Sulk

by birdinastorm



Series: Journey Into Mystery Sketches [2]
Category: Journey into Mystery, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Gen, as the first person narrator no less, old crusty Loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 23:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdinastorm/pseuds/birdinastorm
Summary: A little exploration of Loki through Journey Into Mystery. This is an old WIP.





	1. The Story Up Until Now

**Author's Note:**

> Loki's POV of a Journey Into Mystery fic that didn't come together. Leah's POV is the other part of this series.

Memories bubbled up from the deep, roiling upwards through uncountable years, breaking against the surface of his mind unannounced. Loki remembers the celestial Asgard, though he never walked upon it. He remembers hunting with Thor though he’s never once drawn a bow. His hands feel the burn and spark of chaotic magic though he has never wielded such great power. This history that Loki is woven from, Loki’s warp and weft, is not his own. He remembers even his death, but no thread of that Loki who fell to the Void is left but the echo of old magic that animates him now, Loki, sitting in the All-Mother’s garden, looking out into the wastes of Earth. And yet, that one thread weaves back into the world that the Loki who walked the avenues of Asgard that glittered underneath the stars wrought. His own life, while vivid, floats tenuously like foam on this sea.

* * *

Once upon a time, after the golden age of myths had been solidified by tellings and retellings over many winters, a child named Loki nocked an arrow, pulled back, breathed out, and steadied his aim. It would take some doing to take down the shiny-coated buck that picked through the open woods before him. The first shot is crucial. The smallest twinge of sure anticipation told Loki that he was on target. The beast crumpled. Shock let the arrow fly, to bury its head pointlessly in the tree just beyond where the buck had been standing. Loki stood up, breaking his carefully picked cover for the first time in hours, dumbfounded by the gout of blood that gushed from the animal’s side. The handle of a throwing axe protruded from the mortal wound the buck sustained. A triumphant cry shook all the bright birds from their boughs, and little bright-headed Thor came crashing heedlessly through the thorn bushes nearby. He ran to meet his kill, but caught sight of Loki, still standing, unstrung and slack, staring at the buck. 

“Brother!” he cried, delighted to meet. Loki made no response, and went to wrench the arrow out of the tree. 

“Loki,” Thor tried again, “this buck will be a wonderful addition to the next feast, don’t you think? And I just saw it in passing! What fortune!” Loki smoothed his arrow’s fletch and slotted it carefully into his quiver. “You’ve been gone for days, you must have some fine kills yourself! You must tell me.” 

When Loki was not forthcoming with an account of his glorious hunt, Thor took another tack. “I’ve done nothing but practice the tedious spear fighting moves Teacher taught us since you left on this hunt. Father won’t let me try sword fighting until you—“ 

Loki stood up from his desultory examination of the deer and in one stark movement rounded on Thor. “You. You want to sword fight? You come in here and steal one of my kills just so you can have me to suffer with through Father’s combat lessons? Half of Asgard already thinks I’m useless, the other half say it out loud. And you. Steal. My. Offering”

Thor’s bright mood drains out of his open face, and Loki’s mind for the briefest moment tacks out of the path of attack. The truth is that Loki had failed for days to even come close to bringing down any animal worth a weekday dinner, let alone a feast. Anger, used to feeding upon his own self, flared outward towards a fresh target. Yet it was always too easy for Loki to see Thor’s pain. He hated that he could see it. He hated that it was there. 

“Loki, what nonsense! To come out here to steal— We do not suff— Father seeks to make us as strong as possible to defend Asgard. I hardly knew what direction you set off in!”

“You followed me here! ” Loki spat. Which of course, Loki did not believe. He would get better at believing his own lies. This one, though, felt especially strange, rolling out his mouth heavily like stones falling. He couldn’t continue. 

Thor glared. “You insist on making malice where there is none. You insist on insulting me and Father. It was my heedless mistake, but you will not make me into some kind of blackguard.” He sighed and pulled the axe out of the beast’s side. “We’ll bring it back together. It can still be yours.” Loki winced at his conciliatory tone, but they hoisted the buck together, drained it of what little blood it had left, tied it up, to take it back to the palace. Loki conceded, in the back of his mind, that he could not have pulled it off by himself. 

They picked their way through the woods together in silence. So much of Thor’s life has been eaten away by time. Ages and ages of memories drifted away. So what vision of Loki survived that erosion? What little seed of Loki stayed in Thor even when the Loki that grew up alongside him overshadowed it? Thor remembered this brother, who stood by him underneath the gaze of Odin, who was the first person and for many many ages the only person to see Thor fearful. Who knew that Thor knew fear to the very center of his bones and fell to his knees under its weight. Thor knew Loki’s fears as well, and he suspected Loki ignored that. Thor prayed to each of the ancestor gods and goddesses that this time, Loki could grow up without being twisted, irreparably, around them. He remembers a boy, his equal in all things save mischief making, though they were both keen on it. He remembers a boy, conjuring eerie fish out of light in the air, a bright impish smile on his face. Asgard fell around Thor, and he needs someone to stand by him. Thor remembers heedlessly.

* * *

_  
A more perfect cosmic joke could not have been played on me. I could not have done it myself. I could not have done anything, really, because at that moment I was a parasite. At that moment I could not have rightfully called myself Loki. This child could. This child was given the name Loki and the life of Loki by Thor. A Loki wholly defined by Thor. He was given Laufey and Farbauti, though he knows none of that time on Jotunheim, he was given the title of Prince of Asgard though he knows nothing of standing in that position, at the left hand of Odin. He was given an Asgard made unrecognizable by… Loki. But I am merely an echo. I am weak, but I am the suspicion that surrounds Loki, that keeps him from finding a comfortable place in Asgard. I am the voices raised against Loki. I am the story he knows not but that which everyone else knows. I am what brought everything down. He looks bewildered, poor thing, picking my shape from the flames, and so tiny. So weak. But I am weak. I don’t even have a name. I am frightened, for a moment, that he will outlast me, this little Loki, born of good memories. I am comforted, just for a moment, when Loki gives me a name._

_Ikol. Heh. It’s funny. And not clever._

* * *

Loki lays in bed awake. A fire burns to keep the room warm but he suspects that all it does it pull ghosts and drafts up from the lower palace. The light plays among the carved ceiling, each little figure shivering in fear in the face of the flames. Ikol perches out of sight at the top of the grand window that looks out over a great empty expanse of Midgard. He fluffs his feathers and preens, moving each little feather on his neck into the right position for the third time this night. If Ikol were a creature in anyway inclined to empathy, he would take this sleepless mood of Loki’s with anything other than his habitual, grinding irritation. But Ikol is Ikol, and he cannot do anything at all, unless asked, and anything he will do will be done in irritation. Loki’s mind spins the same few questions over and over and over. Why is it that when Loki looks back, he sees an empty room? Why is it that, when he asks, he can get many people to sing many songs and praises of Thor, yet none for Loki? How when he asks anyone of the Loki that had lived their faces close up and they manage a little false smile and say no, not today. No songs of Loki. His few memories of short life on Midgard wear away into nothing, and there is nothing to replace them. Loki ought to be the beginning of a story, but he is not. So why is it that when Loki looks back, he sees an empty room? 

Why did Loki do it? No one knows.

The child kicks a bit of rubble down the tightly winding staircase. He listens to it clack against the stairs and walls as it falls out of sight. This is where the ghosts are drawn up from. He perches on the top stair and considers the darkness. In Asgard the Aesir live their endless lives mechanically. Aesir come into being and take their place in the workings of Asgard and rarely leave it. There are bakers and then there is Volstagg, to eat their work. There are shipwrights and singers and soldiers, each repeating the tasks of keeping Asgard alive endlessly and steadily, like a chronometer crystal keeping time by its very molecular structure. Asgard grew this way, complete to the last detail, from its tiny seed, like an insect that emerges from its egg in its adult shape. Loki was not born Aesir. Neither that Loki nor this Loki. However welcoming Asgard was of outsiders, and they were never really all that welcoming, and they had never really been fond of this little foundling, he could not find a place within this machine. None in Asgard wish to come down here, down below the dungeons of the lower palace, the perfect place for him. 

Nothing in Asgard dies or is destroyed, but often times things are forgotten. These things accrete in the dark spaces. Down here are stacks of old memories and old magic, jumbled into a great library of the best-forgotten. This is where Loki found Ikol, in this world swept away. Something Volstagg said to him has stuck in his mind like a burr. He said that one day Thor and Loki’s brotherhood fractured, and was never the same again. It frustrated him that, while he had listened closely to Volstagg’s story, that he could not really make sense of it. The Loki who had lived hated Thor… He missed Thor. Thor, much too grown for him, always off on some mission. This Thor of Volstagg’s story was by Loki’s side for many years before he pushed him away and turned away himself. But why? This is what he did not understand. He has to… but no, that time will come and now is not that time. He just wants Thor to be here now, before the mechanics of his story tear him down. 

The child casts about the library. He’s not looking for anything specific, just a path through his confusion. All the Aesir expect something of him. He can see it, their minds working behind their eyes, the All-Mothers’ especially. They structure many of his days, sending him back and forth between tutors for maths and simple conjuring and everything else they think he needs to study. They praise him for his good work and diligence. They say he is a son of their blood. Still they expect something of him that he can’t parse. It’s as if they’re waiting for something, listening through the silence, watching the sky for some omen. It creeps him out. He pulls books from the sagging shelves and lets them drop to the dusty floor without looking once at them. He goes back and forth doing this for many minutes, while Ikol watches from the top of a nearby shelf, almost out of sight. They say, Loki is Loki. What dragon spit! What is Loki? Empty pages. An unfinished sentence. Something unspoken. As if… as if he were the catalyst of a powerful spell or curse, something unspeakable lest the spellcaster lose control. He doesn’t even look at the shelf now, just pulls books down to hear them slap onto the uneven flagstones. A book falls and snaps open at his feet. A complex summoning diagram flows across the old, flaking pages. The child hefts the book, it doesn’t fit well in his arms, he handles uncertainly as if he’s hefting a large cat. The diagram flows into his mind and fills the spaces where there was fear and uncertainty. A chill runs up his spine. Ikol, disquieted, flies to the boy’s shoulder with a peevish magpie chatter. “What are you gawping at?” When Ikol sees what Loki intends on summoning and binding to his bidding, the bird’s heart quails.

Loki resolves to summon a terrible force. The Storyteller.

Relics began to pile up in a room in the palace’s south tower. The reconstruction efforts had yet to reach this little part of Asgardia, and a gaping hole in one wall lets in the light of the sun. Ancient story books join their newer translations from the main palace library. Guides to obscure magic written in cipher by a mad magician crowd a shelf of chemistry texts. Shards of crystals lie about. Loki sits curled up in a fine oak chair with a book and a crumpled up scroll of paper, scratching out a translation. A bubble of runes sits on the surface of his mind, threatening to pop. Ikol swoops in through the ruined wall, cackling in his magpie voice.

“Still you persist in this foolish endeavor? Is that Sif’s chair?” 

“Quiet, Ikol,” Loki says, without any emotion, still fixated on his book. The runes were knitting into a form he could understand. Slowly slowly.

“You could have had all your answers already, without all this tedious effort! You want to know what people think of you all you have to do is watch them, boy! Not hole up here like some frightened rabbit. Not summon some horror from ages past.” 

“Oh and I suppose this is also something you were much better at than me.”

“Better at magic and knowing when not to use it, certainly.”

“I have to know everything, Ikol, not just what my perception tells me, not just what I see when they also see me. I have to know what’s at work here.”

Ikol raised his feathers and clacked his beak with impatience. “At what price? You have no idea!” 

Loki dumped his work on the floor and picked up a hatchet. The runes’ meaning held quietly in his mind, he whispered them aloud and struck the chair apart. It shattered more chaotically than it should have, falling into a pile of huge splinters. Ikol fluttered to a shelf so that Loki could see him and called as imperiously as he could with his bird’s voice for him to stop. Loki merely stared at the bird. 

“Loki, you kept me with you to advise you—“ 

“Noted,” says the boy, choosing a splinter and a crystal by how they had fallen. 

“And yet you refuse to heed my warning.” 

“Precisely! How well observed!” the boys says absently, and he strikes the shards together, forming a brand blazing with energetic magic, an instrument crude, ancient and powerful. “I’m ready!” 

Ikol dives off of the high shelf screeching, “I’m leaving!” 

_The further I fly from Loki the less it feels like flying with bird wings, and I become the thing I am, which is to say, something very close to nothing at all. It seems as if Loki has something of a point, after all. His perception of me is that I am a magpie, and a magpie is what I will ever be in his eyes, but I am a wraith. What is that rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for girl, four for… But the boy is an utter fool. Was I ever as foolish as that child? The further I fly the faster my anger drains away, the less this whole summoning nonsense seems to matter. Without a body, magpie or otherwise, it’s curiously difficult to hold on to any emotions. I try and maintain my sense of urgency though, since a life without the possibility of ever becoming Loki again is a fear that runs so deeply the indifferent life of a spirit cannot overcome it. Loki has only one true ally, as it has always been, and I fly towards him now. The boy could not imagine hating him. I did but now I cannot. _

_  
Thor is overseeing the masons as they work on the foundation of the north tower. That damage is my work, and his work to repair. That cycle strikes me now as something curiously perfect, almost mutually beneficial. Our forces balanced each other, small effort for small effort, big reality altering event for the restoration of the old reality. Call and response. Yet so reactive… and unchanging. I alight upon his winged helmet. The sun sparkling off it dazzles me. I listen to the alien birds that wandered from Earth and sing in the ruined trees. The wind moves through my wraith body curiously, like running hands through silk. I curl up between the wings of Thor’s helmet. There was something… there’s something at the edge of my mind. _

The Teller that Loki summons is not The Teller of this tale, but this Teller is more than enough for Loki’s purposes. The Teller who rises does not rise from hibernation, or accrete from non-being, or come to consciousness from any kind of insensate state. The Teller, when not telling stories, has been listening all those years of obscurity and ignominy to every story dreamed, told, written, drawn and dreamed of again. The Teller rises and settles down cross-legged in the circle, noting the shoddiness of the work. The bonds are comfortably loose, even if the circle is a little small. 

“Who calls me forth?” says the Teller, turning blank eyes at Loki, who is standing as far away from the circle as possible without looking entirely timid. 

“I will not give you my name for names confer power!” he says, shoulders square. 

“Ah I know you anyway, Loki. The great conflagration after a strike of lightning. Though, now you are but a bit of tinder under a spark.” 

The boy glares. “You know what I want.”

“Of course, but you must ask it. That is how this works.” 

“I wish to know what the Aesir are saying of me.”

“Nothing is simpler.” The Teller inwardly delights at this request. Nothing really is simpler. The boy, glaring into the light of his circle frying wherever the Teller’s presence touches it, looks comically defiant. He really believes that this kind of knowledge is crucial. How innocent of the machinations of this story he is! What a good game this will be. 

“Who shall we eavesdrop on first?”

_I remember my deeds in my past life, but I cannot weigh them. I suppose this is what Hela and Mephisto must do, assign morality and the corresponding afterlife upon all poor wraiths. But I declined, I scratched myself from the book, there will be no accounting of Loki in death. I am outside of it all… look at that sky. I was… I was somewhere, I was in a room that had sun shining in… Wait. Thor! I shout, in my waning spirit voice, Loki needs you! Go to him now, in the south tower!_

“Now to the matter of you, Loki”

“You have told me all I need to know. We have no other business Teller, be gone.”

“This is not how to dismiss a Teller, boy”

“It is how I dismiss a Teller. Go.”

“Listen boy, I demand a story in turn.”

“I have no tales of value.”

“Oh? Do you know what you are? You think you sow chaos, but you are a form of control. You are a counter-balance. Ikol knows your power was always balanced against the God of Thunder. You draw the lightning, burn, and are put out by the deluge. You are a delightful little wrinkle in this, aren’t you? Let’s talk about Thor—“

Loki is backing away slowly, “No, I didn’t want—“ The Teller presses against the bounds of the circle, energy sloshes out, sparking around his feet. “There isn’t—“

“Oh but there is, isn’t there? Hero worship and hatred, adoration and shame, what a potent mixture. Your story turns here, becomes something else. You, Loki, who does not hate Thor. What chaos you could cause! Your story is mine, your future I demand.” 

“No, you cannot— you can’t step outside the circle—“ Loki intones breathlessly, his mind working over each rune he put down without fully understanding it, knowing his circle could never contain this thing. Thor, Thor please… The streams of energy flowing along the broken floor jolt alive with terrible intention and wrap themselves around Loki. 

“Thor! Help!” he screams.

“How telling,” the Teller coos, drawing him up, maw wide and hungry. Thor arrives then. It need not be sudden or surprising. Of course the hero rushes in at the last moment, deals a crushing blow on the enemy and rushes to snatch the helpless victim from the jaws of doom. Often times what’s expected is also what is most satisfying. This hero, however, came flying in with a wisp of a villain, and this innocent boy he rescues will set the realms ablaze. The Teller retreats with a slight smile, now missing a few teeth.

* * *

“Thor! How?” Loki clings to his brother, stymying his attempt to put him down. Ikol catches his eye from his perch on Thor’s shoulder. Thor carefully disengages Loki’s panicked grip and sets him down well away from the circle. He stamps out the brand, and kicks the pieces of wood and crystal out of his way, and inspects the burned out circle. 

“This is old magic, brother, what drove you to summon such a horror?” 

“They don’t trust you Thor, Odin, Fandral, Sif, all of them, they think you’re a fool for—“ Loki chokes back his frightened babbling. He gets to his feet unsteadily. “For— because of me. For finding me” 

“Loki,” Thor says gently, “Father and I have have never seen eye to eye, so I am well prepared to face him. My friends are my friends, and we have weathered disagreements for ages. It is no hardship. I’m in no danger, and neither are you.”

“They’re afraid of me”

“You must give them time. You are not the god whom they fear. They’ll come to know that. Trust and affection will follow. In the mean time I will protect you. They don’t know you like I do.”

From then on, however, Loki’s habit of skulking around only strengthened. He made no friends with the other godlings, they avoided him for the most part when they did happen to see him. He eschewed the wide walks and halls of Asgardia for those paths hidden, grown over, and broken. He saw Thor seldom, busy as he was with patching up. He delved further, seeking paths out of Asgardia to further realms just as he had found those that run between the walls of the palace. Loki disappeared. So the fear of Loki festered away unchecked.

It was around that time when ancient song began a new cycle. The Serpent stirred.

* * *


	2. The Norns

“A dark Asgard! Our forces are spent against this abomination, and yet you continue to defend these crawling mortals that strengthen it every hour with their pitiful fear.” Odin spat, and rushed Thor, who could not help but give him ground. 

Thor knelt heavily and spoke without out raising his head. “Aye Asgard is my duty. I know it well, Father, but all of the realms must be protected. The nine realms’ strength is our strength, if we do not—“

“Enough!” Odin roared, and struck Thor. “I will not abide this traitorous nonsense. Anyone who thinks that the mortals must stand while we fall will enjoy an indefinite stay in the dungeons. We cannot afford to balk at what is necessary for our survival. We must do everything within our power to stop this Serpent.” 

Loki stood at the edge of a hall, feeling as if it were spinning around Thor, who pushed himself up slowly. He stepped towards his brother and stumbled on the root of a tree that had grown between the cracked flagstone. How long has Asgard been in ruin? the stray thought caught him just as a large hand grabbed his shoulder. 

“Come away boy, if Odin sees you in this mood you’ll get worse than Thor,” said Volstagg.

“I have to help—“ 

“You can’t, and Thor had me promise to protect you.” Loki turned away and followed Volstagg.

“What kind of family fights like this?” 

“Much is at stake, and in the past you would have been in on the fight as well. You rather thrived on discord. Whatever your intentions now you will not be of much help. I can hardly be seen with you without my character being thrown into question as well. That Thor be seen getting help from you would be more disastrous. You are Loki, for One-Eyed’s sake!” 

Loki bristled. “We must help him.”   
“I agree.” 

“I— what?” 

“Of course! Odin is an old tyrant and for all his grandstanding he’s as afraid of the Serpent as those mortals are. Imprisoning his son and Asgard’s finest warrior is an irrational move even by his standards. No one can afford to stand up to him though, his power over us is absolute. You’re out of sight, and for the love of Freyja, stay that way. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you of all people, but you really must be subtle about it.” Volstagg sighed and knelt to face Loki. “You’re a lad, I ought not to treat you like the man you were or the man you may become. Everyone else will not think twice about it, though, you can count on that. The wounds Loki inflicted upon us are still too fresh. Is it fair? Hardly, but must work with what we have. You have an advantage here and now, and you can use it for Thor’s sake.” 

“For Asgard,” the boy said.

All of Asgard mobilized. Furnaces and fires raged, manned by every blacksmith, to forge yet more weapons of any scrap available. Loki pressed forward towards the heart of Asgardia through the melee, dodging winged horses as they were led in droves from the stables, moving deftly enough to never catch anyone’s ire or attention. Ikol sat low on his wrist, gripping it tightly with his little claws. The clamor died down as they reached a dark, overgrown garden. The sun had just set and the sky turned colorless behind the columns of smoke that twisted up from the forges. He paced among the dormant plants. 

“The Serpent so far has defeated all our forces. He’s built some unassailable engine of war and called it Asgard. But what is he, who is he? A god? No one knows,” Loki mused to himself.

“Someone knows.” Ikol said drily. “It’s not in our nature to be completely unknown.” 

“So you say he’s a god then?” 

“Not at all. I don’t know, but there are some from whom nothing is hidden.”

“Who?” 

“The three Norn women. They live within the roots of the World Tree.” 

Loki shook the bird from his wrist, “What? You really do want to kill me, sending me down there.” 

Ikol wheeled and lit upon a dry branch. “Surviving this will be quite straightforward. All you need is some armor. I give you slimmer chances for surviving everything else.”

In the chaos of the armory, Loki was able to filch a survival suit usually employed in the quelling of fire demons. The fire Loki faced however was one much different, the light and fire of nine realms flow through the trunk of Yggdrasil. He hoped, and hope was all he had, that the walls of chasm out of which it grew were far enough away that the void would offer some protection as well. The city was dark, and the light of the tree suffused the garden around it. It reached up, its high boughs and branches blue with new life. As it plunged down into the void between worlds, the trunk took on many radiant colors, and as it stretched down to its roots the light became gold and red. Loki craned his neck to see the branches and their fruit heavy with galaxies perfectly still against the wheeling stars of the Midgard sky. The anchor of worlds. The cords had been checked and double checked. Ikol had said nothing particularly comforting about this adventure. Loki did not look down, but lowered himself down and down, looking all the while at the shrinking branches. Ikol stayed perched at the edge, and when the boy had disappeared below, flew off.

He could see nothing but the endless swirling color of fevered vision. He couldn’t tell if he was moving or not anymore, though his hands still let the cord through his harness. The blue boughs had disappeared and soon he could see nothing but red. Through this he thought he saw something like hulking shadows, but they coalesced and ran apart. Shadows of what? His blood pounded in his ears. He opened and closed his eyes, convinced for several minutes that he was seeing bright light through his closed eyelids, but he couldn’t see any difference. So it was that he in fact had his eyes closed as the light faded and ran ember red into roots of awesome size. 

A voice, vast but soft, said, “A little spider has arrived! Come, sisters, a visitor.”

Loki’s eyes shot open to see a giant woman striding towards him over a plain of sand and rivulets of crystal clear water, lit only by a sky of ember bright roots twisting across black space. Looking upon her felt like taking a blow: she was a Jotun, the icy blueness of her skin looked a shining black in the light of the tree. 

“You look uncomfortable dangling there, little spider, if you like you may sit in my hand. I will not cut your tether.” 

Loki nodded mutely, and she raised her hand up until his feet touched her palm. He stood gratefully for a moment, and then sat down. She was huge, a true old Jotun, and her palm felt like cool granite. 

“My name is Wyrd” she said, and gesturing at to two other Jotun women who arrived, one curious and the other stoic, “these are my sisters, Verdani and Skuld. We are the Norn women, and you have come very far in search of our wisdom. Your name, little spider.” 

“L-Loki.”

Wyrd smiled, “And your quest?” 

“I must know who the Serpent is, so that I can help in his defeat.”

Wyrd looked to her sisters, her gold eyes flashing, “We have issued a prophecy of the fate of the Serpent and others who have a hand in his fate. You need not have come so far for it.” 

Loki slumped down and in spite of himself felt tears prick his eyes. 

“But we will tell you of the Serpent. His name was Cul, son of Bor, and Odin took the throne of Asgard from him, ending his cruel reign. From that time forward he has striven to win it back. He has woven many magics about this resolution, such that nothing but the extinguishing of Odin’s line shall quell his anger and the power that comes from it. But his gaining his one true desire is also the key to his defeat: Serpent must perish with Thor or not at all.” 

Loki tried to keep himself from shaking. He stood unsteadily and stared Wyrd in the eye. “You said this prophecy had been issued. So does Odin know it?”   
“Yes.” 

“He’s sending all those forces against the Serpent knowing it was useless. And destroying the mortals…” 

“That would only slow the Serpent down, yes.” 

“He’s imprisoned Thor. He’s afraid but he’ll do it, won’t he? He’ll send Thor out against him.”

“Thor’s victory over the Serpent is not assured, only Thor’s death is, you understand. We stand here at the wellspring of all stories but we do not have total knowledge of their paths. This is the knowledge we give you, we hope it is enough.” 

“Surely you can tell me if he has any weak point! I can’t let Thor— I can’t let him fight without knowing that!” Loki said. 

“Look at where we are, we tap into life at its roots, and here we gain our knowledge. The gods are streams of will, intention, and narrative. Find the source spring of the Serpent, and you will have power over him. Use that power wisely.” Loki felt stronger than he had since he first started down. 

“Tell me, you’re Jotnar aren’t you?” 

“Aye,” said Skuld, “And you’re Aesir and a Jotun, depending on which side you’re standing. You’re asking how we aren’t perceived as monsters.” 

Loki was silent. 

“We don’t escape that, Loki. We are wise women. We foretell people’s deaths. Of course we are called monsters.” 

Verdani stepped forward. She was older by far than her companions, but her eyes were bright like new stars. 

“That you came here at all means you have access to very old knowledge, but some knowledge is hidden too well. I will tell you something that even you, yes you as the bird and you the boy, have never known, and few others know. But I think it is time, and sometimes even a trickster can do good with hidden knowledge. In the golden age, before the world tree weathered its first winter, the Jotunar and the Aesir were of equal power. Those ettin-folk living then asked to be a part of Asgard, as many Aesir and Jotun had mingled, intermarried, and built lives together. Those who opposed that Jotunar be admitted into Asgard freely began to call us monstrous. We’ve suffered under that curse for ages, and all the realms suffer for that as well. This is a cursed universe, Loki, ruled by an Asgard which has slaughtered its friends like animals, an Asgard which will always put itself above the other realms and peoples and call that natural order. You were the first to be taken in to Asgard since we were banished, a prince of two realms that could have been one. You see? The division is deep, but it has also never been there. We’ve watched you destroy everything you could, and grieved for it.” 

“It wasn’t me—“ 

“It was, Loki. As long as you refuse to acknowledge your roots and the roots of the world as it is at present you will fail. We have seen your destruction. We have seen your failures. Has Loki ever known victory? No. And nor will he.” 

And your future may not be your own, you can only work with your present. Understand, however, that your past is always with you. Our prince, your time is now.”


End file.
